Christmas Pictures

Photos are important. They allow us to document the progress that we make in life. Carrie has an eye for photographs and a definite interest. We decided that she should pursue that interest. We knew we needed a good camera to help us document the progress of our three boys. A couple weeks ago we got the camera. It's pretty complicated as far as I'm concerned. I don't even know how to turn it on. Fortunately Carrie does. So, today we jumped in head first into the world of photographing babies. Despite what you might think, six month old babies are not exactly cooperative. Believe it or not, it is pretty difficult to get them to look at the camera at the same time, or look at the camera at all. I'm not convinced that they even realize that it's the holiday season. They don't seem to be aware of the fact that literally hundreds of friends and family members are excited to view their holiday pictures. They seem very unaware of the fact that they are without a doubt, mildly famous.

We dressed up the boys in their jeans and Chuck Taylor shoes. We combed their hair and put the best shine on them that we could. Next we drove down to a local park where photographing both babies and older people is commonplace. It's a nice park with cool stone structures and good lighting. Why not share some moments with you. Here is one attempt at getting the whole family at once.

Note that 2 out of 3 babies are not happy. Zane isn't crying, but he looks far from happy. Mom and Dad aren't crying either, but we were ready to.


This next photo is when Mom and Dad decided it was best to just throw in the towel. As you can see, 2 out of 3 babies are extremely upset.

We tried some other pictures, and this one would be great, except for the fact that Cade was letting us know exactly what he thought of the whole day.

Some of them turned out pretty good. This one happened to be on a park bench. Carrie's mother went along with us, and being the good sport that she is, laid down behind this bench at one point and offered to hold the boys up for the photo. Unfortunately, the bench has slats and she was easily noticeable in the photos. I'm very sad to say we don't have any with her laying on the ground, but here is one that worked.


I know what you are thinking. Try some individual shots. This made sense to us also. I held them up in the air and Carrie took some pictures. These actually turned out pretty good. These boys smile all the time. They laugh and smile at everything. Except for when these pictures where taken. You would have thought we had canceled their first Christmas.

Here is the family photo from the park that turned out the best. There are definitely things that Carrie would change, but I think all in all we got lucky on this one.

After getting all ready and going to the park, we got our very angry boys back to the house to do the 3:00 p.m. feeding and try and regroup. I put them on the couch and instantly we get something like this.....

It's not really even fair. This is just the couch. No cool park bench. No neat outdoor Austin winter sun. Not even anywhere near what Mom had in mind, but hey sometimes people are just happier when they get to hang out on their own couch.

After the boys ate and we took these couch pictures, we decided to head out again. This time we went to The Domain here in Austin. The Domain is a very cool collection of shops and restaurants near where we live. Carrie had heard that there was a Santa Claus there. Of course, we wanted to get the boys with Santa, but what were the odds of this happening? We figured that one of them would be scared. One of them might throw up on Santa, or they would all scream bloody murder as soon as they hit the old man's lap. I knew we were really rolling the dice, and you could see the looks of shear terror that hit the faces of the people working for Santa. I think they were like elves or something.

Elf #1: Uh...triplets huh?

Carrie: Yes. We want to get their picture taken with Santa.

Elf #1: Uh..Wow...at the same time?

Carrie: If we can, but it's a crap shoot.

Elf #2: Wow. We'll do our best.

At this point Santa gets out of his chair and walks towards us. We had the triplet stroller in the Santa line. I had just resigned myself to the fact that this probably wasn't going to go well. They hadn't exactly been cooperative before, and now we had Santa to contend with. In addition to the stress that the two elves and Santa were adding, we had attracted a gallery of onlookers. There was a whole crowd of people around anxious to see if we could pull this shot off. Santa was a bit nervous. He told the story of the one other time he had posed with triplets and they all started screaming. We assured him that we knew he could do nothing. The whole thing was a gamble. We got the boys out of their car seats and placed them in Santa's lap. The elves all made noise and Mom and Dad both tried to get the attention of the boys and have them look at the camera. The crowd held its breath in anticipation. Then, like a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, the boys pulled off their first Santa shot. The two elves gave each other high fives as we put the boys back in their car seats. Santa was extremely pleased with himself, and Carrie and I were just stunned.

In the end, Santa Claus makes everything okay.